LIQUOR SALES TO HOTEL GUESTS

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26477, 19 July 1951, Page 6

LIQUOR SALES TO HOTEL GUESTS

N.Z. ALLIANCE SEEKS • RESTRICTION

“TRADE IS FLOUTING THE LAW”

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, July 18. The New Zealand Alliance favours an end to the after-hours supply of liquor to hotel guests. Delegates to the annual meeting of the alliance in Wellington to-day unanimously agreed that, as a result of abuses of toe system, it was desirable that the right of licensees to supply liquor to lodgers after hours should be curtailed. “The trade is flouting the law, and the privilege has now become so universally abused that it ought to be withdrawn,” said the Rev. G. H. Goodman, chairman of the national executive.

“Everyone knows that a hotel lodger may invite as many guests as he likes to drink with him after hours,” said Mr C. W. Lopdell, of Auckland. “Why should these people have special rights, just because they live at an hotel? “The public has to buy its liquor before 6 o’clock if people want to drink at home in the evenings. Publicans and their guests are thwarting the purposes of the law by subtle and underhand means. The only way to stop this is for the sale of liquor to guests after hours to be made illegal.” After-hours trading and the serving of liquor to persons under the age of 21 were condemned in the annual report of the alliance. “This, together with the almost daily instances of drunkenness and drunken motorists, makes it difficult to believe that the police cannot obtain a greater number of convictions against both offenders and licensees,” said the report. "From 1943 to 1949, convictions for being intoxicated in charge of cars rose from 184 to 514. Drunkenness convictions climbed from 2489 in 1943, to 3402 during 1949. “The alliance considers that the strongest evidence in support of, the contempt which many licensees nave for the laws was the disclosure made before a Conciliation Council when the Hotel Workers' Union claimed £2 a week extra for workers engaged in after-hour trading as ‘droppers’ and ‘look-out men.’”